“A1A”: one of Buffett’s best albums, close to perfect

Florida State Road A1A, or A1A avenue as Buffet calls it, runs along the eastern coastline of Florida.

Spanning from Georgia all the way down to South Beach, you’re “suddenly 90 miles north of Havana and four blocks from my house,” Jimmy Buffett said of the road.

The gateway to the Keys, A1A’s connection to the sea made it the name of the fifth studio album from Buffett.

The cover of the album has Buffett as he relaxes with a beverage in a rocking chair, with blue skies and seas looming large in the background.

In “Life Is Just a Tire Swing,” we follow an episodic description of Buffett’s life, with its ups and downs. Buffett was carefree as a kid when he’d go camping with his cousin or chase sparrows.

His only connection to the outside world used to be a record player jamming Elvis, but now he was “rubbing shoulders with the stars.” As Buffett wrote this song about his aunt’s house having a tire swing, he was driving in Illinois and saw a house with one just like it, a weird coincidence.

The next morning, he fell asleep at the wheel of his rental car, crashing it into a telephone pole right in front of that house; “I had the ending of my song,” Buffett would recount.

“Nautical Wheelers” describes the people of Key West and their carefree lifestyle, in addition to some of Buffett’s experiences there. One experience being when Buffett and his friends got stuck at sea after a drinking game went astray, and trying to get back to shore, they were “hangin’ on to a line from my sailboat.”

In this song, we hear a call back to Buffett’s last album, with the line, “everyone here is just more than contented to be livin’ and dyin’ in three-quarter time.”

I believe the idea of living and dying in three-four time is about living life slower, taking your time to really experience, and enjoying the little things, such as being with those you hold dear. I really like that meaning, and it’s a good touch the song was written in three-four time.

“A Pirate Looks at Forty” is another song I can’t dismiss. It puts us in the perspective of an individual who doesn’t feel quite right in the time he lives in. This song tells the story of Phil Clark, who was a bartender at the Chart Room, a bar Buffett frequented. Clark was a smuggler, who made and lost a lot of money; he is, at heart, a pirate who feels out of place, being how he is 200 years too late since “the cannons don’t thunder, there’s nothin’ to plunder.”

Buffett also describes the ocean and all her great vastness in a way that only a sailor can truly understand.

The song is one of Buffett’s biggest hits, with it guaranteed to be played at any concert. The name of the song would also inspire the name of Buffett’s 1998 memoir, “A Pirate Looks at Fifty.”

There are so many good songs on this album that I wish I could discuss in depth (if only the Record let me write 2000-word opinion pieces).

“Presents to Send You” is about his girlfriend Jane; however, my favorite verse comes when Buffet describes when, in golf shoes, he climbed on top of Sherrif Buford Pusser’s Cadillac, before getting beat up by him (search up the guy, he was brutal).

“Stories We Could Tell,” though a cover, fits into Buffett’s discography well, and how “if it all blows up and goes to [expletive],” at least we got some good stories to tell each other.

“Migration,” though it takes a punch at the trailer parks filling up his Keys and Florida retirees, the song has deeper meaning.

Buffett talks about how there is so much life to live, however, it seems like everyone he sees is stuck doing the same thing every day and how “they never even seen the clues” that there could be more to life. But not him, he refuses to live that way, proclaiming he’s got a Caribbean soul he can barely control, and a little Texas hidden in his heart.

In “Tin Cup Chalice,” Buffett tells us exactly what he wants with the lines, “I want to go back to the islands”; simple but true.

Lastly, “Trying to Reason with Hurricane Season” details how despite the threat of an incoming hurricane, Buffett passed out in his hammock; waking up, he stumbled to the bar and in the following hangover, wrote this song.

In the chorus, he confesses that “I could use some rest, I can’t run at this pace very long,” detailing the rapid pace he has had to put out these last few albums; it isn’t easy to keep doing.

Though it didn’t capture the same acclaim as “Come Monday,” “A Pirate Looks at Forty” performed well. “A1A” as a whole made it to 25 on the Billboard charts. To a fan like me, this is one of his best albums, with it being close to perfect.

The three songs I highlighted are some of the best from this album, with “Nautical Wheelers” and “Life is Just a Tire Swing” being among my favorite songs by Buffett.

This is the heart of the golden era, and I wish I could write so much more about these songs I love.

For our next adventure, I invite you to start “Havanna Daydreaming” with me.